North Adams Finance Committee Backs Mayor's Plan
 The North Adams Finance Committee meeting drew a larger crowd than usual. |
Meeting on Monday with Mayor Richard Alcombright and before a more than a dozen residents and city officials, the committee voted on using the original amount of $166,000 from the free cash acccount.
"This has been a good process and a good discussion," said committee member Alan Marden. "I'm going to recommend we keep it at the mayor's proposal."
The order had been referred to the Finance Committee at last week's tax classification hearing at the urging of Councilor-elect John Barrett III.
Barrett, a former mayor, wanted the City Council to dip into some $250,000 in reserve accounts, such as the landfill and parking, to reduce the tax rate. Alcombright opposed the move based on the current economy and the need for the city to bump up its depleted reserves.
"When we look at we have in reserves and look at out budgeting, we have to realize, we're still in a deficit ... we're still in a very unsettle budget climate," said Alcombright, who pointed to a half-million in anticipated budget increases for fiscal 2013. "This is a very conservative and balanced approach."
The mayor said he had spoken extensively with the Department of Revenue, which had advised putting cash away; and that the condition of the reserves had also been a central talking point with Standard & Poor's keeping the city's credit at A-minus.
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Barrett countered that the so-called reserve accounts were replenished annually and should be used for the operations for which they were intended. He also objected to the term "budget deficit": "You don't have a budget deficit ... It's how you want to fund it."
"It's not a case where I believe in eliminating all of the surplus," said Barrett, who noted he had put away the school choice funds now being used to buffer the school budget. But the councilors some 20 years ago had demanded some of the reserves, like the landfill account, be given back to the taxpayers, he said, pointing to Alcombright's late father as one.
Alcombright said reserves should be used for renovations and expansion and that if they were used for operating expenses as Barrett recommended, "we should just put them into the general fund."
According to figures provided by the mayor's office, $100,000 equals about 11 cents on the tax rate, or a reduction from $14.82 to $14.71, or about $14.85 off the average tax bill.
The mayor said that a significant tax bill reduction, like $150, would be worth dicussing, but using $250,000 in reserves would save the average homeowne about $35 and put the city more than $600,000 behind going into the next budget year.
"You don't think the average homeowner is entitled to something?" asked resident Mark Trottier, who urged using money from "replenishable" accounts. "That it all should be kept reserves? Don't you think we're entitled to a $250,000 reduction. Aren't we entitled to something?"
The matter will be back before the City Council on Tuesday at 7:30 p.m. The council will vote on whether to maintain the current split tax rate (the public hearing for which was held last week) and whether to approve the original request to transfer $166,000 to reduce the tax rate.
North Adams Budget Documents 2012
Tags: budget, Finance Committee, reserves,
